A man who was only browsing engagement rings out of curiosity has turned to Reddit for advice after his girlfriend apparently mistook his interest in jewelry for a sign he was about to propose. According to his post, the situation took an awkward turn when he joked that they were nowhere near ready to get engaged, leaving her wondering whether he wanted to marry her at all. The man said he and his girlfriend had been together for around two years. Both in their late twenties, they had a good relationship and had started discussing moving in together sometime next year. Although marriage had come up in conversation, he claimed they had never seriously discussed getting engaged anytime soon. A few weeks earlier, he had reportedly started searching for engagement rings online because he was “curious about prices.” He wasn’t apparently planning to buy anything or propose just yet, but when his girlfriend unexpectedly came over while he was looking at a jewelry website, he quickly closed his laptop to avoid giving her the “wrong idea.” When she asked what he’d been doing, he apparently told her it was something for work. It was a total misunderstanding A couple of days later, his girlfriend reportedly began asking what he thought about emerald-cut diamonds and whether he preferred classic or unusual designs. He said, “my stomach dropped”, and joked that he “barely knew the difference between diamond cuts,” and added that “she laughed and changed the subject.” TIFU by accidentally making my girlfriend think I’m planning to propose byu/These-Calendar-4394 intifu According to the user, the misunderstanding came to a head during dinner at his girlfriend’s place. She reportedly mentioned that her sister had asked whether the couple planned to get engaged soon. He laughed and replied, “God, no, we’ve barely even figured out where we’re going to live.” He claimed he meant that they “weren’t planning to get engaged immediately,” not that he “didn’t want to marry her.” His girlfriend reportedly went quiet and responded, “Oh. Okay.” He assumed she was tired. The conversation purportedly resurfaced when he was about to leave. His girlfriend allegedly asked whether he had recently been looking at engagement rings. She reportedly said that she had noticed a jewelry website in his browser history while borrowing his laptop a few days earlier and recognized it because her sister had used the same website when her fiancé proposed. The man claimed that he panicked when she asked about it. “That doesn’t mean anything,” he told her, later realizing that the response may have sounded dismissive. His girlfriend reportedly replied that “You don’t have to marry me if you’re not ready. I just wish you’d told me you weren’t thinking about that yet.” He apparently tried to explain that he could see himself marrying her eventually but wasn’t “ready to take that step yet.” Although she apparently said she appreciated his honesty, he believed she was still hurt by the exchange. He also claimed that his girlfriend might be feeling embarrassed about the situation since “she thought something exciting might be happening, only to find out that she’d apparently been reading the situation completely wrong.” She was apparently planning her dream wedding, and after ruining it, the user was left wondering how to fix the mess he created. He concluded the post by claiming that he had not spoken to his girlfriend the day after the incident and was confused as to whether he should give her “some space” or explain himself again. Users in the comments wrote that he should have a conversation with her and explain the situation like an adult, with one comment suggesting he “sit down and have a conversation about her expectations and yours. Go from there.”